This recipe highlights knife skills and bold Middle Eastern-inspired flavors. You’ll master pureeing garlic by hand for a deeply aromatic marinade and create a bright, fresh sumac salad to accompany tender beef kabobs.
Ingredients:
For the Beef Kabobs:
1 1/2 pounds beef sirloin or tenderloin, cut into 1-inch cubes
3 garlic cloves
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
For the Sumac Salad:
1 pint heirloom cherry tomatoes, halved
1 medium cucumber, diced
1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly and rinsed
1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
1 teaspoon ground sumac, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions:
1. Prepare the Beef Marinade:
Smash the garlic cloves with the flat side of your knife. Sprinkle with kosher salt, which acts as an abrasive. Use the side of your knife to scrape and mash the garlic into a smooth paste.
In a large bowl, combine the garlic paste, olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper. Whisk to combine.
2. Marinate the Beef:
Trim the beef of excess fat or sinew and cut into uniform 1-inch cubes.
Add the beef cubes to the marinade, tossing to coat evenly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 4 hours.
3. Prepare the Sumac Salad:
Quarter the cherry tomatoes and place them in a colander. Sprinkle with salt and let them drain for 5-10 minutes to remove excess liquid.
Peel and lightly crush the cucumber with the side of your knife. Dice into small, uniform cubes, similar in size to the tomato pieces.
Thinly slice the red onion and rinse under cold water to remove harshness. Pat dry.
Finely chop the parsley and add it to a large bowl along with the tomatoes, cucumber, and onion.
Sprinkle with sumac, lemon juice, olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Toss well and garnish with extra sumac and mint if desired.
4. Skewer and Grill the Kabobs:
Thread the marinated beef cubes onto metal or soaked wooden skewers, ensuring even spacing for consistent cooking.
Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium-high heat. Grill the kabobs for 2–3 minutes per side for medium-rare, or longer to your desired doneness. Rest for 5 minutes before serving.
5. Serve:
Arrange the beef kabobs on a platter alongside the sumac salad. Sprinkle fresh parsley and a touch of sumac over everything for extra brightness.
hi everybody Welcome to the cutting edge brought to you by Schmidt Brothers Cutlery I’m Chef Diana and I’m joined here today with Samantha who’s moderating the chat Hi Samantha Hello I’m so excited to be here I’m excited to be working with you again It’s it’s absolutely a pleasure We’ve had lots of knife discussion prior to class and are really really excited to uh introduce you to another yet another set of these fabulous Schmidt Brothers cutlery Um the Zebra six- piece barbecue set So fun Um really just a great set of tools Uh check the check the Schmidt Brothers website for availability Uh this set can be found at Kraton Barrel and all the knives can be found on the Schmidt Brothers website And if you’re not familiar with Schmidt Brothers website or with their knives you need to get familiar And we’ll start that process tonight because you’re going to want some They’re absolutely fabulous and affordable and last a long long time So uh Schmidt Brothers is on a mission to have you embrace love cooking and you need to feel comfortable with your tools and have an assortment of tools So um we want to definitely work with Schmidt Brothers and sharpen your passion for cooking So welcome welcome welcome again I’m Chef Diana Super happy to be here I have taught some Schmidt Brother cutlery classes before and uh really enjoy them Uh word of caution my the first Schmidt Brothers class that I taught I um realized how dull my knives at home were So they come really really really sharp and they also keep their edge for a long time which is a fabulous feature of them You need to handle them properly They never go in the dishwasher only hand cleaned um and just handle them properly but just just be careful because they are very very sharp which is a fabulous fabulous feature obviously but um sometimes we don’t realize how dull the knives we’ve been using are So really um important information Safety is really important I taught a class yesterday and I want to it bears repeating what I said yesterday that when I start a project a recipe if I start the class and I have 10 fingers I’d like to finish the class or the project with 10 fingers That’s one of my goals Okay So we have lots of goals throughout cooking So this set uh this uh beautiful zebra wood six piece barbecue knife set So barbecue yes but so many other uses also So first of all before I unveil this gorgeous set of knives I want to know and maybe you can put this in the chat and Samantha can share with us how many of you are fair weather outdoor barbecue people I mean may we’re coming from all over the world to these classes So maybe you live somewhere nice and warm and it’s warm all year and it’s like “Oh yeah sure I barbecue all year long.” Maybe you live somewhere on the East Coast where it’s been really really really cold And even here in the Pacific Northwest we’ve had some pretty chilly miserable weather and we get a lot of rain So I know people that live here in the Pacific Northwest and they’re like “Oh yeah I’m a diehard barbecue person I don’t care Sleep rain whatever’s coming down however cold it is single digit temperatures which is unusual here but we get them sometimes I’m out there barbecuing or not going to do it If it’s not 70° and sunny I’m not going outside.” So we’ve we’re probably all over the place Personally I’m kind of somewhere in between there if I really want that nice barbecue grill flavor and uh I’ll go outside in some weather that’s not so desirable and grill So I bet we’re all over the place with that So this set is ideal for anybody in your life including yourselves who likes to barbecue Whether you’re a fair weather or a diehard it’s a wonderful fabulous set But there’s so many uses for each and every one of these knives for other things as well So this is the set And I love this little travel kit safety kit that it comes in this canvas bag It’s fabulous So anybody ever traveled camping you rent a a rental unit somewhere Uh I like to take my own knives and this makes it super easy for you to put these knives in here You roll it up It doesn’t It packs so easily and compact Your knives are safe They’re handy and you can travel with them So I love that Especially what if you’re camping and you you know you have access to a a grill or a barbecue but you you want to have good tools with you as well You know pack along a nice little cutting board and you’re and you’re good to go So first of all it comes with this canvas bag which is fabulous And then each knife also comes with a protective cover Okay So I’m going to pay attention here as I do this but they’re in these sheets that are really solid and heavy duty that protect not only the knife itself but also protects you Okay and they slide out really nice and easy So they come out very very easily Uh I want to really uh make the point very clear that when you do put your knife back into this it’s pretty compact in there You do want to make sure that your knife is completely clean and dry Okay so you dry it with a nice clean towel on the back side not the sharp blade side but on the back side all the way down So that protects your hand So just make sure it’s really dry You don’t want to put any moisture inside of there Even if you cleaned your knife really well moisture loves bacteria and if there’s any little remnants of food or something on your knife um there’s a potential for a food safety issue So make sure that it’s really nice and clean and dry and then put it back in here and back in the kit it goes So really nice uh that it comes with also those really heavy duty uh um nice and compact uh protectors for your knife So this first one that we’re looking at it’s called a brisket knife Um who doesn’t love brisket brisket Um most brisket we eat is from the cow and it is it sits on in the belly area and a brisket benefits from a long slow low cooking method Um typically smoked but not always and it’s just a a wonderful delicious cut of meat So when you are a brisket is usually a pretty good size piece of meat and so this knife would be really good for um trimming that We have another knife that would be good for trimming it raw as well But you could trim the brisket a little bit A brisket benefits from some meltable fat being left on the brisket because as it cooks long and slow that fat is going to melt into the brisket and tenderize it and flavor it But there may be some undesirable fat or too much fat that we might want to trim a little bit of that fat off So this knife would be great for that And then when the brisket is finished and cooked this knife is great for slicing that brisket because again it’s a fairly large piece of meat So it has the benefit of a lengthy blade and you long smooth strokes with the blade and it also has these nice little divots on the blade that will keep it from from the meat from adhering to the brisket the brisket like kind of sticking to the knife So these little air pockets on the knife help release the meat from the knife which is really nice and a safety feature as well So not only is it like to keep you from getting annoyed but it’s also a safety feature And we may have had that Today we’re really focusing on um got some beautiful proteins and we’re talking about slicing proteins in general but I wanted to use just a potato as an example because um most of you I’m assuming like to cook and have cooked for a while and that’s why you’re here But that’s just an assumption We’re glad I’m glad you’re here for whatever reason and we’re glad that you’re here live but you can always watch on demand as well So some of you may be watching this later on demand Make sure and share these clubs with your friends They’re just they’re it’s so great Um but back to back to class Um you may have been cutting a potato and potatoes have a real tendency because they’re real starchy to want to stick to the knife So those little divots those little air pockets kind of keep the product it just makes it helps it like slide right off the knife even if you were cutting thinner slices So really nice knife That’s the um the first one in the set It’s called the brisket And then we have a again I’m being very careful about taking these out Um the next one we have is the uh butcher’s knife So the butcher’s knife is again it’s a fairly large knife uh beautifully crafted These are all 100% German steel and um really nice knife for larger uh projects So larger cuts of meat Uh the butcher’s knife would be dicing slicing larger small pieces Uh I like this little tip on the butcher’s knife for cutting around bones on larger pieces of meat So again lots and lots of uses and not only for animal proteins You you know we do a lot We prep a lot of things So you know already look at what we have out here today for our class today Lots of things So these could certainly be used for many things other than just animal proteins So this one is the butcher’s knife And then the next one is a uh a chef’s knife a barbecue chef’s knife So it’s a pretty um mediumsiz knife Lots and lots and lots of uses for this It also has these wonderful handy little divots that will help release food from the knife And uh it’s a really nice size Uh all of these knives have a very comfortable grip Uh we pinch it like this up here I actually have my thumb on the blade on this side and my pointer finger knuckle is on the blade here My fingertips are away from the bottom of the knife But this is a proper grip on a knife Okay so you always want to grip up on a knife like this You don’t want to be too far up for obvious reasons That’s going to feel really awkward And if you’re too far back that might feel pretty comfortable but it’s a little unsteady I have too much wiggle room in here So you really want to hold the knife firm like this And it should feel very solid in your hand All right and if you have the habit of doing this with your pointer finger many people do I would really encourage you to try and get away from that habit It will feel awkward at first but you’ll get used to it over time This sort of sets us off balance too and doesn’t give us a safe steady grip on our knife So so many people do this and I’m not no judgment from me at all I find myself doing it sometimes but I’m just saying if you can get away from that and practice this grip on your knife I think over time you’re going to be really happy and very proud of yourself Okay so work on that And then the next one we have the next knife the last one in the set is a bon knife which I love a bon knife I use it obviously for proteins for animal proteins I use a bon knife and I love the Schmidt Brothers with a little flexibility to it It bends a little bit for other projects So I would actually use this knife uh maybe to take like the the peel off of a cantaloupe So a cantaloupe has a thick skin but it’s not super super thick like a watermelon or something So the little bit of flexibility and because a cantaloupe is not perfectly straight it has a curve to it This knife would be perfect for taking the peel off of a cantaloupe Okay but we are going to use it today for a couple of different things It has some obviously fabulous uses for animal proteins as well And then lastly we have the carving fork which I love the shape and size of this fork because it has numerous uses that I can think of to use it for So it’s its purpose is when we’re grilling or barbecuing it’s holding our protein We have that big brisket It’s holding it steady Okay it’s holding it steady as we slice And we can also use it for serving or moving things Although today we are going to use our fabulous Schmid Brothers bench scraper for moving items This would also work really well This doesn’t come in this particular set but it’s something you should have um to move the item off of the the cutting board onto the platter That’s also a handy tool But the fork depending on the size and how many slices um could also be used for that as well And you know what else I would use this for i would also use this for a pasta fork And if you have long ribbons of pasta and you’re trying to serve it have you ever had pulled out pasta like fetuccini out of a pan and it’s kind of flying all over the place it’s sort of almost like one of those little rides at the carnival with all the the swings kind of moving around and your your fetuccini is going everywhere A pasta fork And this is really shaped a lot like a pasta fork but has multiple uses You sort of curl it up You roll the pasta up on the fork and you move it to the plate Not only does it look beautiful like restaurant high quality beautiful but it leaves the plate clean It leaves your counters clean It presents beautifully So I would use this not only for my meat and carving but I would also use that for um for pasta And there’s probably a lot of other things too So anyway just a fabulous set Uh I love the I love the look I love the feel And of course we love what it does It just it works phenomenally Okay so we will be using um some of the most of them uh today in class I’m just going to move them off to the side here Samantha did we get any info in the in the chat about fair weather or not oh not too much of that but lots of love for brisket Lots of love for brisket Right Also talking about you know brisket’s not just a Texan thing but also a Jewish thing too was really popular in the Jewish community Right Right Right Um so yeah love for that And yeah I was just thinking about how it’s so great the sharp knives because sharp knives are so much like as long as you’re treating them well they’re so much safer because you’re not going to put as much force into the knife They are safer Um but you do need to get used to them Really need to get used to them I you know I’m not I’m not going to jinx myself today hopefully but you need to really be careful So we’re going to make the marinade for the beef We’re doing a skewered beef kebab today And so the marinade uh we’re using a a a spice that’s often used in Middle Eastern cooking called sumac s u m a cac And you have access to the recipe And sumac is a it’s a spice and it has a really beautiful color It’s kind of a a brick ruddy red color and the flavor profile is kind of tart lemony citrusy It’s very bright and it’s really really delicious So we’re going to use some sumac in this I’m sort of giving this a little Middle Eastern flare today Um but we’re going to start by making a garlic paste So I have garlic cloves that I have peeled here And the recipe calls for three but some of these were a little bit smaller so I went ahead and used a little bit more And um maybe you feel the same way about garlic that you do brisket It’s like okay that’s good Love garlic So maybe it’s a little bit more than three cloves but you know cloves of garlic really really vary in size And so to make a garlic paste I’m going to go and start with my um chef’s knife with the barbecue chef’s knife and use that So proper grip And then I’m just going to begin by doing a very rough chop to begin with on the garlic So just making the pieces just a little bit smaller And then I’m going to use kosher salt A coarse salt is good for this next step And the kosher salt is bigger than a table salt And it’s a little coarse So it’s going to give us some abrasiveness to sort of break up the garlic from this rough chop stage Okay So I’m going to use the back of my knife to scooch things around If it was larger uh size product I could use the Schmidt Brothers bench scraper but I don’t want to really scrape the blade of the knife on the board The these knives keep their edge for a long long time but you can keep your edge for quite some time if you take good care of it That’s no dishwasher and that’s not scraping it along the um the cutting board Sometimes you know you have to just move it along the cutting board a little bit but just try and avoid that whenever possible And then I’m going to take my fingers towards the back end of the knife here and I’m just pressing down And that salt is helping to break the garlic up a little bit more So my knife is really basically flat So I’m not along the edge at all And you could keep going and going and going with this It doesn’t It really doesn’t take very long You could keep going and make a super super fine paste If I was making a salad dressing or something raw where there was going to be a lot of garlic I would want the garlic to be a lot smaller In a salad I don’t want to come across a big chunk of the back of the knife a big chunk of garlic in a salad dressing So I’m going to I for today’s recipe I can keep this a little bit big Now you do when you make a garlic paste I love this because it it really helps incorporate the salt into the recipe but when you make a garlic uh paste you have to remember that you’ve already put the salt that’s called for in the recipe in there So sometimes the salt will come later on in the recipe It’ll say you know add this and this and this and then add the salt You have to say oh yeah I made the garlic paste so the salt’s already in there So you always want to add salt as you’re cooking but you never want to go overboard always air on the underside so that you can always add more salt at the end But if you add too much salt to something it might be a little bit difficult to uh remedy it after that Okay so the marinade we’re just going to put this rough chopped garlic in there back of the knife with the salt And then a little bit 2 tablebspoons of olive oil Two perfect right and then two tablespoons of lemon juice So this bon knife would be perfect for just making a nice slice on the lemon Each lemon average So average has two to three tablespoons of fresh juice in it So sometimes you pick up a lemon and it’s bigger and it’s really soft and you feel like oh it’s really juicy and sometimes you pick it up and it’s like rock hard and then maybe you cut into it and the rind is about a half an inch thick Sometimes the the skin is is nice and thin So these are very juicy You can see the the rind is very thin They’re very soft So two to three tablespoons per lemon I would say this one has this lemon would have probably four to five tablespoons of juice in it It’s really really soft and juicy and I’m loving it Okay so I think I’m good That is probably two tablespoons We’re going to use lemon later So I’ll just hold on to that Keep that off to the side So here we have for the marinade we have um the cumin and smoked paprika So here we’re going to get not only are we going to grill these and we’re doing indoor grilling today but not only are we going to grill these uh we’re going to have a little bit of smokiness through the smoked paprika So Spanish paprika and Hungarian paprika are two different things It’s really important to know the difference between them So the smoked paprika or Spanish paprika is smoky has a a pretty nice sweet smoky scent and flavor to it Hungarian paprika is just more kind of sweet more neutral So um we have that and the the cumin Samantha do we have a Oh I was just gonna share that Uh for me it was just mindblowing the first time I tried paprika that hadn’t been hanging around somebody’s kitchen for years There’s so much flavor And I feel like smoked paprika at least for me is one of my most used spices cuz I love that kind of roundedness that the smoky flavor I agree with you I love it too But I really like to point out that they are very very different They’re not interchangeable right they are absolutely not interchangeable So um and then we have everything in there except for the pepper So add a little bit of pepper So cumin smoked paprika salt pepper garlic lemon juice and that’s the marinade Really simple wonderful wonderful flavor profile So we’ll put that off to the side while we cut the meat And the meat I want to show you today we have two different types here The recipe calls for uh tenderloin or another cut a top sirloin So we have both And I just wanted to show you that this is the top sirloin which we’re going to use today And this is the tenderloin which we’re going to use for another use So the tenderloin let’s see I don’t need that little piece We’ll put that off to the side The tenderloin is it sits um on the cow It sits like below in the belly and it doesn’t get a lot of exercise Okay So I don’t know when the last time anybody see a cow do sit-ups slightly They it just kind of hangs there And so when the cow’s eating this wonderful diet of you know whatever grains or grass or whatever the tenderloin is just getting it’s just hanging out there and it’s just it just doesn’t get any muscle So it’s really really tender Hence the name tenderloin So it just hangs out in there Um the top sirloin comes from a part that’s gets a little more exercise and um it has a but it still is a super super tender Just not quite as tender as a tenderloin It doesn’t mean it’s better or worse It’s just different And it will benefit from a marinade a little marinade and then a really hot and fast grilling technique So both of these cuts are cuts that can be served rare medium rare and you could cook them a little bit longer if that’s the way you prefer your meat your red meat cooked Um the brisket is another thing Um same animal but the brisket it comes from the belly area as well but it is a um piece of meat that benefits from a long slow cooking time So just you know just you’d have to you and your butcher has this information If you need more information when you’re shopping and you’re getting ready to prepare something uh a butcher is a is your best friend in helping you decide which cuts to buy for whatever you’re making So the tenderloin what I’m going to do with the tenderloin is we’re going to slice it really thin and we’re going to put it into like an Asian marinade later We’re not doing that with that’s not part of the class today I just wanted to show you the two different cuts Okay you could certainly cube this marinate it in the same marinade and cook it It would be absolutely delicious You would just want to do it really fast and really hot and not overcook it or don’t go low and slow on it It’s it’s going to benefit from a a really quick cooking time And then the top swirling will be somewhere kind of in between We’ll do a pretty hot uh temp on that Okay So um to trim it the tenderloin has uh some meltable fat which we want to keep because that’s going to help actually flavor the dish and it’s going to marinate and base the meat as it’s cooking and help tenderize it even more So it’s going to be super tender But sometimes you’ll see this little bit of a sort of elasticy looking um we call this silver skin and it gets it does get chewy when it cooks So this little flexible bon knife is perfect for coming in here and getting underneath that silver skin trying not to cut into this beautiful piece of tenderloin It’s not the most inexpensive cut of meat so you want to utilize and get as much as possible And we’re just going to come really close to the surface And this knife works beautifully for this See how little meat is attached to that so very little waste And I just want to take off that one little elastic piece there And then we’re good to go All the rest of that is meltable fat So we’ll check out this other one over here And that doesn’t have any of that elastic silver skin on it except for this one little piece And I can see that the butcher where we bought this actually attempted to remove it and did a really great job of getting most of it But I’m just going to come back and just pick up that little piece that he or she or they missed to remove that Okay And then we’re good to go with that all the rest of that fat is going to melt off of there And so for the um you could actually use there’s a couple of knives you could use but for this small piece of meat I kind of like using this this uh thin bon knife I’m cutting meat across the grain Now with a tenderloin you don’t really see much of a grain in a tenderloin If you’re familiar with like a flank steak if anybody’s familiar with a flank steak a flank steak has a really visible grain meaning you can see the lines the way the lines run And you always want to uh cut across the grain So with these little tenderloin steaks it doesn’t matter Now I am cutting in strips and I am going to marinate So but I’m going to go really really hot and fast And since it’s an Asian style marinade if we have availability to a walk we’ll use a walk And a proper stir fry technique is to really really hot and fast and the product is moving constantly So that’s how you make a really good stir fry and keep it nice and tender especially when you’re using tenderloin And then we would slice that one too Maybe we have some ginger some soy sauce some garlic uh maybe a little something sweet Um and then we would proceed from there and do our stir fry Okay So for our kebabs today we’re using this top stir line which is a beautiful cut It’s already about 1 inch high And so all we need to do is cut uh the rest of it across this way and into oneinch pieces and get that marinating for our kebabs So first I’m going to look for some silver skin not meltable fat And I don’t see any So we’re going to go ahead and cut that And let’s go ahead and use one of these other fabulous knives Oh my gosh Which one it’s like like a gift to have the all these choices So let’s go ahead Let’s use this one the brisket And we’ll just make sure we’re trying to cut the meat in the same size And you think about how you like your meat cooked Do you like it rare medium rare today for class time I’m going to cut a little bit smaller At home I actually prefer my red meats more on the rare side personally but we all have different preferences So um at home I might cut them just a little bit bigger so that I can keep an eye on them and really control it as it’s cooking and not overcook it Remember you can always cook something See how this just it’s like this knife is cutting this steak like like it’s butter It’s just slicing right through and nice long smooth strokes Okay so easy Um you can always cook meat more but if you overcook it you’re kind of stuck You kind of have to eat it the way it is right so always cook it a little bit under That actually would go for anything probably right and cook it a little bit under Okay So sanitize this I’m always amazed by how much carryover cooking makes a difference Like how much more cooked it gets Yeah you always have to account for that don’t you always always always Yeah it’s it’s uh I have a friend that has one of those thermometers that actually like graphs the temperature So he graphed the temperature of his like turkey and it the temperature kept rising for like 20 or 30 minutes after it was already out of the oven right well especially with larger pieces of meat that’s going to happen Your carryover cooking is going to be a lot more because it’s been in there longer it’s a bigger piece With smaller pieces it happens quicker but it still happens Anything you apply heat to carries over Okay so there we’ve got that wonderful marinade We’re just going to let that sit in there You know ideally if we had the time um you know an hour four hours I would even There’s nothing really highly acidic in there There’s some lemon juice and the sumac has a tart um flavor but nothing super highly acidic I would pro I could go you could go up to eight hours And again it depends on how big you cut the meat and what’s in your marinade But that one could go up to eight hours If you you can over marinate If you over marinate something meat sometimes can almost turn kind of mushy after it’s cooked So you do need to be careful and not over marinade But if you’re going to make a beautiful marinade like that make sure that you allow enough time for it to really permeate So today we’re speeding the eggs up a little bit but at home you can give yourself more time I’m going to remove this raw meat cutting board for the salad Clean one underneath I just always like to point out that I always put a little piece of paper towel or a kitchen damp kitchen towel underneath my cutting board when I’m cooking so that the board is not sliding around It doesn’t move If I didn’t have that little paper towel or something and I’m cutting the board is sliding around So that’s for knife safety as well So I always like to point that out that I do that And I’m just going to sanitize my hands here real quick My sandy towel and then we’ll move into the the salad So I love this in the middle of winter to have this really wonderful fresh tart salad Um and we’re going to use the sumac in the salad So we’re going to start with the tomatoes And I want to We have these beautiful It’s so nice that we can get tomatoes year round now And choice of knives Chef’s knife the flexible bon knife would work for this Um any of them would We’re using small tomatoes so I’m going to use a a smaller knife if you had a large uh viner ripe tomato from the garden That sounds really nice in the middle of winter doesn’t it we’re we’re going to get there Spring is coming and then summer’s after that But a beautiful vine ripening tomato that was big Um this knife would work really great for that The brisket knife would work really good to slice that tomato and then those little uh divots on there would keep it from sticking to the knife But we have small tomatoes today so we’ll we’ll stick with the small knife And we have an assortment We have way more than we need These have been washed ahead of time so that I was ready to go here And we’ll just mix them up and do some different colors Yeah And I don’t know if this uh kind of gels with your your experience but in my experience I feel like the small tomatoes in the winter for whatever reason they’re just better Like it’s hard to get a good big tomato in the winter but the little cherry tomatoes or pear tomatoes tend to be pretty still got some flavor They do They do It’s you know there’s there’s different farming techniques happening and um you know we’re transportation things coming from warmer warmer places where they’re growing them maybe or hotous Um yeah we do We have more availability every day don’t we with our products that are available to us and that we’re introduced to I love that Yeah these are beautiful And again these knives just cutting through them just like butter again Oh it looks great I feel like knives are just Yeah tomatoes are almost like the ultimate test of a knife for a little salt So that little bit of salt is going to they’re going to sit in here in the salt Toss that salt around and then that’s not only going to flavor the tomato but it’s going to kind of release some of those lovely tomato juices into the bottom of this bowl And so uh we’ll see what what happens in the next few minutes with the time we have But we may end up with some really lovely salted tomato juice that would be delicious in our salad when we when we finish it and put it all together I’m going to turn up my grill pan here really high because I want to start cooking the meat as soon as possible Uh we’re going to let those tomatoes sit and I want to do one more thing ahead of time before we uh get our meat working Here we have a red onion and this was a really big red onion So um choices on knives Uh let’s just try this butcher knife out just for kicks because I think it’ll work really well for this And peel back the layers here And then maybe we don’t want big huge slices of onion I don’t know But let’s maybe we’ll do some thin slices across like this Beautiful Keeping my fingers out of the way use what I call the claw grip like this This small fresh salad with this um caramelized beef is going to be delicious Okay So let’s go ahead and use the the bench scraper Put the onions in there And what I’m going to do with these is just get give them a little rinse in some cold water So pardon me for just a moment while I go to the sink And that’s just going to take a little bit of the the sting the bite off of these And then we’re just going to let those kind of hang out and mellow a little bit as we work on the the meat Okay So that’s kind of a nice little little trick too You can dunk them into some ice water if you have that handy or just run them just for a few seconds under cold water and it just kind of takes a little bit of the heat off Not everybody loves raw onion and salad And if you do like raw onion but you’re like “Oh sometimes it’s a bit much stays with me for a day or two,” um try that little trick of just some some really cold water running over So that’s kind of handy All right so I think we better I think we should cook the meat Um I wanted to show you this I don’t know if anybody’s done this Whether you’re grilling inside or outside I always if I’m using wooden skewers I always soak them in water ahead of time at least for one hour And the purpose is that especially if you’re outside and you’re over a live fire um you don’t want the skewers to burn So if the skewers are wood and they’re dry uh they’re likely to burn And if you soak them for some time before uh they’re less likely to burn So I always soak them just in a little water You can do it overnight if you want to Um so they’re ready to go They can be in there you know for even longer than that if you want but just it’s a nice tip to remember to do that And then we’re going to take the meat and I’m going to put some gloves on so that I can continue to make the salad afterwards because I think trying to do this with um skewering them with tongs might be a little little problematic So I’ll just put these on Working with raw meat Some people don’t like to touch raw meat That’s okay Most of us have gloves in our households I didn’t before COVID but I do now right gloves in my house And so we use them for cooking sometimes Sometimes if you’re cutting hot chili peppers um it’s nice to wear a pair of gloves And then we’re just going to skewer the meat And I think even with the really short amount of time we’ve had I think it’s going to be really nice and flavorful still [Music] So leave a little tiny bit of space in between We want to make sure that the whole thing cooks So if we bunch it all up like this it’s going to be very difficult for the heat to get in between those So just a little barely like till you can just barely see the skewer I would recommend that And portion size So you know I’m making these pretty much entree portion They’re probably going to be 6 to 8 oz Everybody our tech crew